Hoda Kotb just turned 60, and she couldn’t be happier about it.
In fact, the author and TODAY co-anchor chose to celebrate her 60th trip around the sun by giving a birthday present to the rest of us: the gift of her positive and inspiring perspective on aging.
For a special episode of her podcast, “Making Space with Hoda Kotb,” instead of inviting a guest to join her, Hoda sat at the mic solo and opened up about embarking on a new decade of life with hope for the future and gratitude for the past.
Here are some of the powerful lessons she shared along the way.
Look at those around you
“When I learned that Brooke Shields is turning 60 and Mariska Hargitay and Sandra Bullock and all of these awesome women, I feel like this is a club that I am honored to be a part of,” she shared. “Because what do I (see) when I look at these women? I see vibrancy. I see creativity. I see rebirth. I see new life. I see all these beautiful things. And I realize that every decade, no matter what you are, is a chance for repotting, rebirth, resurgence. Like all these things can happen. You get to choose.”
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Her message is just as fitting for someone approaching 30 or 40 as it is for 60 — or any landmark age.
“Some people, when they turn 30, are like, ‘Oh my God, I’m 30. It’s over. All my friends are married.’ It’s like, be real, man,” Hoda said. “You’re on your own ride. You’re on your own train, and your blessings are coming when they come. And your blessings might come in your 20s. They might come in your 30s. They might come in your 40s. Mine started — started — in my 50s. That’s when the best ones came.”
For Hoda, her 50s ushered in the personal high of motherhood and the career high of becoming a co-anchor alongside Savannah Guthrie on TODAY. It proved to be a decade of growth beyond any other.
“I can only imagine that my 60s are going to be filled with all of that goodness,” she continued. “I mean, picture the class photo of Mariska Hargitay and Brooke Shields and, you know, Sandra Bullock ... I mean, I’m just saying people who we know because they’re in the movies. But how about all the other cool women out there who are in this club? Like, it’s the coolest. I feel lucky. Yeah, I feel lucky.”
But it’s not all about luck.
You are worthy of more
As Hoda has learned firsthand, if you want those highs, those blessings that come at whatever age, you have to first recognize that you’re worthy of receiving them.
“I wish I knew back in my 40s that anything was possible, because I really didn’t. I probably didn't believe it,” she recalled. “I sort of believed, in my early 50s, maybe this is as good as it gets. Maybe I have a great job, and I have a great, you know, brother and sister and nieces and that’s amazing and lucky me. And I felt that.”
But eventually she realized that feeling thankful for what she had didn’t mean she had to feel satisfied with it.
“Sometimes, I think you have to tell yourself that you deserve more,” she explained. “You’re worthy of more. You’re allowed to ask if you want something more. I think it’s beautiful to be humble and grateful, but I also think it takes something special to say, ‘I actually want that.’ And to have the power to stand in your own self and say, ‘I deserve something more.’ Sometimes I think we used to think that good enough was enough. ‘That’s good enough. This is good enough.’ But why?”
In other words, life is precious, so why not make room for more before it’s over? Hoda believes there’s just that one hitch: “You have to feel worthy of it.”
“You are lovable, and you deserve to have love in your life in all forms,” she stressed. “So, open yourself up to it and let it come in. I think that’s what I would’ve told my (younger) self.”
'I want ...' is the start of a powerful statement
In 2007, Hoda was diagnosed with breast cancer, and while battling the disease and facing a double mastectomy was daunting, she found a vital lesson in the wake of it all.
“I realized my life was short and limited, and I should ask for what I wanted,” she said. “In theory, that was what I was telling myself. I did ask for what I wanted professionally, which is how I wound up working on the fourth hour of the show. It was simply that I had the courage to ask for something, because I realized, ‘What’s the harm? Why not ask? So what if they say no?’ But I don’t know that I was taking risks beyond that.”
Until she did.
“I think I was looking at lives that I admired, like I wanted the feeling of holding a baby, my baby,” she recalled. "I wanted that feeling. I didn’t know that I would have that, and so I did some work on myself. I think I sort of just confessed it to a friend. ... It’s like, speak your truth out loud, even if you just tell your friend, or even if you tell yourself in a whisper, or even if you look in the bathroom mirror and say, ‘I want a baby.’ Just like that, or, ‘I want ...' whatever you want. Say it out loud, and I do think the universe is funny that way. You speak something out loud, and all of a sudden, it starts manifesting in front of you.”
Need proof? Just take a look at the beautiful family she started at age 52.
“I started to feel more worthy of being loved and deserving a family,” Hoda recalled of the days before motherhood.
“When I first adopted my kid, I remembered saying, 'I don't know if I deserve them,'” she explained.
Hoda adopted her first daughter, Haley, in 2017, and she adopted her second child, Hope, in 2019.
She said speaking those words out loud made her “shudder inside,” and she continued to question if she “deserved” to have her kids until she did some self-reflecting.
“I realized that you know what, I'm a loving person, and I do deserve them.”
It was a 180 moment for her, because during her cancer battle, a doctor told her that the side effects of treatment, along with her age, meant she wouldn’t be able to have children.
“I was like, ‘Wait, what? So, this thing not only put limits on my life, but killed a dream?’” she thought at the time.
That was fear talking. Then came a revelation.
“I remember waking up one morning and saying to myself — it was like a lightning bolt — I remember those four words: You can’t scare me,” she said. “Because the worst had happened, so now what am I afraid of? Not being afraid released me. It made me free. It was amazing.”
Let your roots stretch out in a bigger pot
Without the roadblock of fear, big things can happen, like starting a family — or moving a family.
“I feel like I’m in this repotting phase of my life,” the mother of two said of where her head and heart are these days. “I just feel it. I feel like my roots need a bigger pot, in all kinds of things. I’m physically moving with my kids, which was a big deal for us, because it’s easy not to move because friends and this and that. You know, why would you? And when I found this spot that I liked, a little town that had all the things that could teach my kids independence, I told my kids, ‘We’re repotting.’ They’re like, ‘What? We’re moving?’ I go, ‘Yeah, but we’re repotting.’”
It’s an important distinction, but it proved to be a simple one to explain to Haley, 7, and Hope, 5.
“They go, ‘Oh, what is that?’ I go, ‘Well, it’s when you pull yourself up by the roots. And you’re a little scared, right?’ They’re like, ‘Yeah.’ I go, ‘But then we’ll go back into really great soil. We’re going to grow bigger and stronger. That’s going to be the place.’”
In that way, they can all embrace the excitement of changing, whether it’s a new home or a new lease on life.
“I realize, especially in recent weeks, that I’m making space to be a better mother and a better sister and a better friend and a better worker,” Hoda noted. “I have to be a better me, because I realized that I was kind of putting my own things on the back burner, so that I could rush home. And I realized, so weird, but just yesterday, I came home from work; I hopped on the Peloton; I rode really hard. I was drenched. I looked at that 40-pound kettlebell that I cannot bear the sight of, and I picked it up, and I was like, ‘I’m doing 16 of these squats. I’m doing three sets, and then I’m going to swing it. I’m going to do 16 of those.’ I saw those 15-pounders that I felt like I couldn’t pick up because my arms were going to fall off, and I go, ‘Come here.’ I picked them up. I did the workout.”
When she was done, she took a well-earned shower just before the girls came home from camp.
“When I saw them, I was alive. I was vibrant,” she said of her post-workout rush. “That contrasted with what a normal day sometimes gets like, because you’re racing in, you’re scrambling, you can’t. ‘Oh my God, I only have 10 minutes,’ blah, blah, blah. And I get it. But I’m going to start carving out some time. It doesn’t necessarily have to be for an exercise, but for something: prayer, meditation, journaling, the things that matter. Because it makes me better.”
At 60, she knows: “I’m better with them when I’m full. ... And from there, all the things grow. So, that’s what I’m going to make space for this year. I’m also going to make space to give my kids room to grow, and let them fall down and get up and fall down and get up. ... Let them grow. Let them become. 'Who are you supposed to be? Oh my God, you're supposed to be a maple tree? You're amazing!' You know, don't try to make them into a magnolia.”
Age is what you make of it
“Sixty feels like breathing to me,” Hoda said as she pondered this new era of life. “If you would have asked me years ago, like 60 was going to come, I would have been like, ‘Oh my gosh.' That would seem like the end. As I stand here, with 60 right here with me, I feel energized; I feel alive; I feel like this decade that is coming up is going to be a home run. I feel it in my bones. You know when you know something to be true? It’s like: Put on a lie detector test and let’s play! Because 60’s going to be amazing.”
And it’s more than good vibes or a hopeful hunch that has her feeling so certain about that. Hoda knows the best is yet to come because she’s paid attention to everything that’s come before it.
“I wouldn’t trade my 50s for anything,” she said of her last decade. “‘Do you wish you could go back to your 20s?’ No, I don’t. I don’t want to go back to my 30s or my 40s. I will reflect on my 50s throughout my life because that decade was amazing. But what I know from this — because life’s a pattern — is that it keeps getting greater. Because why? Because you’re more yourself. You’re not pretending. You’re not trying to do, to be everything to everybody. You’re trying to raise beautiful kids, you’re trying to make life magical and you’re trying to fill the other parts of you that need to be filled.”
So, she expects her 60s to be thrilling. After all, as author, actor and recent TODAY with Hoda & Jenna guest Bevy Smith is fond of saying, “It gets greater later.”
“‘It gets greater later’ is my bumper sticker that I stole from Bevy Smith, and I sometimes — almost always — give her credit, except for a few times when I haven’t,” Hoda shared. “But when I think about sitting with Jamie Lee Curtis or sitting and talking to Gayle (King) from CBS or looking at Oprah (Winfrey) and thinking, ‘That’s what 70 looks like.’ Or one of my nearest and dearest, Maria Shriver, who personifies what 60s look like. If you look at her, she has spent her 60s checking off boxes, working on women’s health, working with the Cleveland Clinic, doing this, doing that, self-care. I’m watching someone who is vibrant, who doesn’t want to rest because she has the next thing. So, I’m watching 60s personified, and it is freaking awesome. I mean, I can’t wait.”
It seems safe to say, now that Hoda has joined the ranks of the 60s, plenty of people will have their eyes on her and think the very same thing.
This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from Today:
